Elizabeth Cherry saw the want ad in the Cape Cod Times, turned to her husband and said, "John, this is you."

It turned out the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce agreed. One month ago yesterday, John Cherry joined the Chamber as its first Vice President of Golf & Sports Marketing.

The new position replaces and expands on the foundation built by long-time golf journalist Geoff Converse over the past four years working as a consultant for the Chamber promoting the Cape as a golf destination. Converse told the Chamber it could help its members prosper with marketing that had as its centerpiece attraction the Cape's numerous, diverse golf courses. More than a few members, particularly in the hospitality industry, bought into the idea, worked with Converse and the Chamber and found the approach successful.

"We were very successful in creating a brand identity and promoting that," said Wendy Northcross, CEO of the Chamber.

Four years later, the Chamber and its Golf Committee wanted to take the initiative to a new level. But they weren't sure Converse was the right guy. "What we needed was a sales and marketing person who knows a little about golf instead of a golfer who knows a little about sales and marketing," Northcross said.

"They were looking for a professional marketer and my passion was golf," was how Converse put it. The parting was amicable.

"We accomplished a lot," Converse said. "We made ourselves certainly a lot more viable in some areas as a golf destination, not just a summer beach destination."

Enter Cherry, who, according to Northcross, beat out a number of strong candidates for the new and apparently very attractive position.

Cherry is a native of Scotland - he grew up in the Glasgow area - who came to the United States in 1969 to attend Boston University on a track scholarship. His first job in the U. S. was in the building that now houses Barnstable Town Hall. He took photos for identification cards for students at Cape Cod Community College, which at the time occupied the building. A few words of caution to golfers who might think Cherry, born in the same land as golf was, brings the sensibility of a Scottish linksman to his new endeavor: you have to listen very hard to hear any residual hint of a Scottish accent as he speaks, and he played his first round of golf not in his native country but right here in the United States.

He studied economics at B.U., then went to work for Xerox. He didn't take a marketing position, but his new employer put him through intensive marketing training - "They dumped you in a vat that was eat, sleep and drink the stuff," he said - just as it did with every other new hire.

It has served Cherry well.

"Some of the building blocks I still use today," he said. After that, he said, he picked up the bulk of his sales and marketing expertise "by osmosis."

For the past two decades, Cherry has worked as a senior sales and marketing executive in high-technology industries, working for both Fortune 500 companies and start-up concerns. About a year ago, he and his wife moved from Los Angeles to Barnstable village. He was working as a consultant when Elizabeth saw that ad in the Times.

Cherry and Converse met last week, and Cherry spoke highly of Converse's work with the Chamber, offering as it does a number of platforms for future development.

As Cherry's title makes clear, he won't be confining his attention to golf. He readily ticked off several participatory sports for which the Cape could market itself more aggressively as a destination: cycling, running, tennis, fishing, and not only staples bass and bluefish, the Cape's staples.

"I think there are other types of fishing that can be done here," he said. Then he gestured out the window of his Shootflying Hill Road office: "There are two rowing teams that use Lake Wequaquet here."

So clearly, his thinking isn't confined to traditional Cape Cod. It also isn't tied to traditional marketing. He knows major national brands are seeing greater return for their marketing investment from the internet than from print or television, and he won't be afraid to follow their lead.

He said he has spent much of his first month in "listening mode," but as he begins to develop new promotions and synergies among industries, he will focus on being able to measure results, on "somehow being able to get to the audience and have that audience respond to us in such a way as to know that message hit the mark," he said.

And he will maintain a core focus on promoting a variety of activities and a variety of industries - art galleries for a golfer's non-golfing spouse, for example, as well as lodging establishments where the couple might stay and restaurants where they might dine.

Or better yet, more than one couple.

"One good thing about golfers is they hunt in packs," he said. So what about runners, cyclists and flycasters? If Cherry doesn't know yet, he will soon.